Competitive Industries

IPv6 in automation engineering - new horizons in communication technology

Guest article by Reiner Plonka, System Manager, Siemens AG

Distant horizons. We are in the year 2013 and are finally able
to address and communicate with all devices using a uniform Internet
protocol... A vision, a nightmare or is this already reality?

IPv6 data traffic is increasing

The potential for addressing IP nodes with the current Internet
protocol v4 has reached its limits. New services and more nodes can
only be reached using the new Internet Protocol v6 (IPv6). The
operating systems have already been able to handle this for many
years, but IPv6 has not yet succeeded in making the real
"breakthrough" in user data traffic. However, this
breakthrough is now about to happen.

This is evident, for example, from a large Internet node such as the
Amsterdam Internet Exchange. Average IPv6 data traffic there is
currently still in the range of 0.5 percent as compared to IPv4.
However, IPv6 data traffic has increased more than
three-fold since May 2012 – from 2 Gbps (Gigabits per
second) peaks to up to 6.6 Gbps. Consequently, it is now time to offer
appropriate support for automation technology.

Free white paper on IPv6 in automation technology

In the white paper “IPv6 in automation
technology”, we describe the basic configuration of
an IPv6 address and the differences to
IPv4, and we provide practical examples of
how an IPv6 network can be set up using Siemens products. These
examples cover all aspects related to applications: from connection of
existing IPv4 plants via a Simatic NET OPC server to direct data
communication of a CP 1543-1 with an IPv6 FTP server in IT. Simply
read the white paper and try it out for yourself!

We hope you enjoy reading and look forward to receiving your comments!